Planet of the Apes

I promise that this is the only time I will say "monkey" in this entire writing.  It bugs the hell out of me that so many of the articles and reviews think they're being cute by making that kind of reference in their title or text.  Anyone who paid attention in the fifth grade knows that chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, the principles on the afore named planet, are apes.  If you're looking for a cute hook, why not say, "I went ape over this film!"?  Or, you could say that Tim Burton and company are "looking to ape the success of the original."

It is especially grating when the characters in the film make the same referential errors, especially that they work with chimps all the time.

The good news is that the film is not a complete waste of time, but the bad news is that there is too much of a waste to be a great film.  The really strong components of the movie are the makeup and behavior of the ape actors.  Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter are strong as are the remainder of the adult ape principles.  The one possible exception to that might be the Paul Giamatti character, which you would either find humorous or irritating.  Even at that, he isn't terribly irritating.

The down side of the film is that one could spend hours picking apart its many flaws.  Within the need to suspend one's disbelief, in order to accept the premise of the film, things should hang together well.  They don't and its many flaws create a distraction.

First off, the film takes place in 2029.  I'm as excited as the next person about the future of space exploration, but I somehow doubt that we're going to be as advanced, as the film depicts, a scant 28 years from now.  Early on, Mark Wahlberg's, character jumps into a space pod and dons a helmet as easily as though it were a construction hat.  Even though it has the look of the durable Mercury program helmets, it doesn't really connect to his suit.  He simply needs to zip up to prepare for the flight.  Disobeying orders, he flies off in the pod to attempt the rescue of a chimp pilot who has been sent to explore a cosmic storm center.  The mother ship is powerless to stop him.  You'd think they could just take over the controls if they wanted.

Crash landing on the "planet," the pod has descended like a meteorite.  Instead of creating an impact crater the size of Manhattan, it knocks a path through the trees and splashes into a small pond.  Tanks should be as tough as whatever material they made the pod from.

It goes on from there.  The film is a string of weak links and it could fall apart at any of them.  If I can make one comparison to the original, and there are many where it would not hold up well, I would argue that the relationship between the astronaut and the female chimpanzee lead (Ari) is not cultivated well enough.  I find it hard to believe that she would have gone to the trouble that she did to help him, given their cursory interaction to that point.  In the original, there was a great deal of Zira, Taylor and Cornelius getting to know each other before they stepped off the brink together.

I could go on in one vein or another about this film, as it leaves a lot to critique, but I would summarize that the film does have merit in its production qualities surrounding nearly everything ape.  Beyond that, I believe it fails at nearly every opportunity.

8-6-2001